Israeli Media Criticized by Leftist for Coverage of Gaza Conflict

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Gaza militants was covered around the clock in Israel. Media outlets largely adopted the government’s narrative and justifications for the offensive. Leftist Israeli bloggers and netizens, while criticizing the government throughout the operation, also attacked what they saw as a biased coverage of the events.

Israeli leftist tweep Uri Horesh chastised a Jerusalem Post reporter who was assigned to write a story about the suffering of pets in southern Israel. Here’s the exchange between them:

‏@sharonudasin[1]: Does anyone have pets who are freaking out because of the rocket sirens? If so, please contact me today for a story. Thanks! #jpost

“It’s time to stop with the precision attacks,” stated Daniel in his radio-phonic and authoritative voice as he tried to “educate” the IDF on how they should act. “It’s time to bring out the heavy hammer. At some point, we need to something more harsh and violent.” In the stream of the patriotic, unquestioning babble that has been filling our screens in recent days, it is understandable why this sentence did not shock many. And exactly because of this, it should not be taken lightly. We should not accept a situation in which a prominent journalist, who is supposed to provide viewers with information and perspective, clearly calls for military aggression against a civilian population.

In the way it is reporting about the events in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli media has moved backwards to two decades, to the era of the Reprisal Operations[4] when it served as the mouthpiece of the military establishment.

In previous wars, the IDF would ‘feed’ military correspondents with information, and provided media outlets with video material and leaks from the field of combat. The media would process this material in one way or another, and air what fit their broadcasts. In short – the IDF needed the journalists just like the journalists needed the IDF’s information. But in the current operation something changed… The process in which IDF becomes a media outlet of itself, and the owner of the exclusive and most important information is a process in which the information that is transmitted to the citizen is inaccurate. Part of the responsibility for this falls on Israeli media outlets that choose to air the statements of the IDF Spokesperson without fact-checking and without asking questions. At the end of the day, it is the journalists who are obligated to follow the rules of proper and ethical journalistic work. On the other hand, the obligation of the IDF Spokesperson, although it is easy to forget this, is not to the truth, but to the IDF’s military objectives.